As soon as the first warm rays of sunshine and the buds emerge, I dare to step out from my winter den. I always say: I do not like winter and that’s it! Spring gives me wings, just as in a well-known commercial. Sun delights me, lures me to go out. I throw a book in my bicycle’s basket and start pushing the pedals. I pass Merwede by ferry and get lost among the small streets of the almost 900 years old town. Dordrecht is an attested city from 1220 and is the oldest city in the South Holland province (Zuid-Holland). It is such a picturesque medieval city, with Renaissance and Art Nouveau buildings, with beautiful boats anchored in rows. In spring is even more beautiful! I can wander for hours among the cobbled streets. I know a few places along Voorstraatshaven where I like to read and watch passers-by. But not about Dordrecht I want to write, but about a special place in Dordrecht. It’s a unique place, looks like a place forgotten in time, a place with a beautiful garden, with a hotel like a castle where sleeps a lost beautiful girl waiting for her prince. Speaking of the Prince, I was reading yesterday on Facebook this: Forget about Prince Charming, go for the wolf. He can see you better, hear you better and eat you better! 🙂
Villa Augustus is one of my favorite places, on the same list with Cărturești Carousel Bookstore from Bucharest and Mogoșoaia Palace. As it is described on their site, Villa Augustus is a hotel and restaurant in the middle of a vegetable garden. Their site is wonderful, joyful, you can check yourself here. The garden is covering 1.5 hectares. In the past, on this place was the former water tower in Dordrecht, transformed in 2006 into a vegetable garden, and now the garden incorporates the vegetable garden, an orchard, an Italian garden and a small wood. The 37 rooms hotel is 33 meters high, and in 1882 was a water tower. I haven’t slept in the hotel, although I would love to (but I did visit the room from the last floor, the Lantern Room), it would be a bit weird to book a room here while I live 15 minutes away. Some rooms have a view of the Wantij river and some rooms of the garden. No two rooms in the hotel are the same They all have their own atmosphere and color, their own furniture and fittings. The paneling in the corridors and the headboards are made from the original doors of the water tower. On the last floor is the most beautiful room, The Lantern Room (Lantaren Kamer), with a view one of a kind. The room on the top floor has access to the glass lantern on the top, by a spiral staircase. The view offers a panorama across Dordrecht. In good, clear weather, you can even see the Euromast in Rotterdam! The price is according to the view, 190 euro per night. 🙂
At the entrance of the restaurant, there is a market offering pastries made in their own kitchen, fruit and vegetable straight from the garden and many other delicious things. The menu is prepared with fruit and vegetable from the garden, according to the season. As soon as spring starts, sometimes till late into October, you can eat or have a drink on the terrace of the garden, surrounded by lemon trees and looking over the gardeners hoeing, sowing, planting and harvesting. In the evening, you can sneak through the garden to the Wantij river to watch a colorful sunset. What could be better? At the entrance of the store, dominates a chandelier made by a British artist, Stuart Haygarth, of objects found on the beach and, inside the restaurant, another chandelier made of cups plates, spoons, forks.
The name of Villa Augustus derives from emperor Augustus (63 BC to 14 AD), whose approach to urban planning helped to usher in a period of peace and tranquillity in the Roman Empire, and from the month of August, the month of the harvest. This is my one of my favorite place to read, drink a cappuccino and lose time dreaming. Have I told you that they have a delicious lemon cake? 🙂